"They were late getting out of the bank?" I asked Arthur Strickland.

"No, sir, "the guard said to me. "That's just it. They could have made it on time. They didn't seem to want to. They told me to stand up. I thought they was going to shoot me right then. I was in Vietnam, but I was never this afraid."

"They gave you a message for us?" I asked him.

"Yes, sir. A message for both of you. "You like this bank?" one of them asked me. I said that I liked my job. He called me a "dumb spade asshole. "Then he said that I was to be their messenger. I should tell FBI Agent Cavalierre and Detective Cross that there was a mistake made at the bank. He said there could be no more mistakes. He repeated that several times. No more mistakes. He said, "Tell them the message is from the Mastermind," "Then they shot everybody else. They shot them where they lay on the floor, in cold blood. It's all my fault. I was the guard on duty at the bank. I let it happen."

"No, Mr. Strickland. "Betsey Cavalierre spoke softly to the bank guard. "You didn't. We're the ones at fault, not you."

There can be no more mistakes. The Mastermind knew all about the FBI's Betsey Cavalierre and Detective Cross. He was on top of everything, even the police officers assigned to the case. They were part of his plan now.

It was a gorgeous day for his excursion into the countryside outside Washington. The lilies and daffodils and sunflowers were in bloom, and the sky was clear; it was bright china-blue, with just a couple of cloud puffs placed symmetrically to the east and west.

The current bank-robbing crew was staying in a farmhouse just south of Hayfield, Virginia. It was a little more than eighty miles southwest of Washington, almost in West Virginia.

He rounded a bend on an unpaved road and saw the rear end of Mr. Blue's van jutting out of a faded red barn. A pair of dogs were roaming in the yard, biting at horseflies. He didn't see any of the gang yet, or their girlfriends, but he did hear their loud rock-and-roll music: Guitar-heavy, southern-flavored rock that they played constantly, morning to night.

He walked into the farmhouse living room, which had been remodeled to resemble a loft. He saw Mr. Blue, Mr. Red, Mr. White, and their girlfriends, including Ms Green. He could smell coffee brewing. A broom was leaning against one wall, which meant they had cleaned up a little before he arrived. Next to the broom was a Heckler and Koch Marksman's rifle.

"Hello, everybody," he said and waved shyly, his way. He smiled, but knew that they considered him a geek. So be it. Ms Green was looking at him like he was a geek with the hots for her.

"Hey, mon professor," Blue said and gave him a light-hearted grin that was so insincere it hurt. The Mastermind wasn't fooled. Mr. Blue was a stone-cold killer. That was why he had been chosen for the First Union and Chase robberies. They were all killers, even the three girls. "Pizza," he held up two boxes and a paper bag," I brought pizza. And some excellent Chianti,"

Killjoy, he was thinking to himself. Killing machine.

Killing time.

Killer idea.

Killing fields.

The Mastermind smiled thinly at his own obsessive word play. It was the kind of half-smile that didn't feel good on his face, though. It felt false and a little forced. It was just past four o'clock, and it was still brightly sunny outside. He'd gone for a nice walk in the fields. He'd thought everything through. Now he was returning to the farmhouse.

He entered through the front screen door and let his eyes crawl over the bodies. The inhabitants of the farmhouse were dead, all six of them. Their bodies were strangely twisted and contorted, the way metal can get in a firestorm. He had seen that phenomenon once, after a fire that raged through the hillsides outside Berkeley in California. He'd loved that: The sheer beauty of a natural disaster.

He stopped and studied the dead. They were murderers, and they'd suffered for it. He'd used Marplan as the poison this time. Interestingly, the antidepressant was most potent when ingested with cheese or red wine, especially Chianti. The odd chemical combination induced a sharp increase in blood pressure followed by cerebral hemorrhage, and finally circulatory collapse. Voila.

He looked more closely at the dead and it was extraordinarily fascinating. Their pupils were dilated. The mouths were open in horribly twisted screams. Bloated bluish tongues hung out of the sides of the mouths. Now he had to get them out of here. He had to make the bodies disappear, almost as if they had never existed.

A girl named Gersh Adamson was sprawled on the floor near the front door. She'd tried to run outside, hadn't she? Good for her. She was Ms Green, a tiny blonde lady who said she was twenty-one, but who looked no more than fifteen. Her mouth was frozen in an anguished scream that he simply loved. He almost couldn't tear his eyes away from Gersh Adamson's lips.

He figured that she was the lightest to carry; she probably weighed no more than a hundred pounds.

"Hello, Ms Green. I've always liked you, you know. I'm a little diffident, though. I should say that I used to be shy. I'm getting over it."

He reached out and touched her small breasts. He was surprised to find that Ms Green wore a push-up bra under her blouse. Not quite the little dip pie-hippie she seemed to be. He unbuttoned her blouse, then pulled it off, and stared at her breasts.

He unbuttoned the dead girl's jeans. Then he inserted a finger inside her panties. The flesh was a little cool. She had a silver ring in her belly button. He touched it. Pulled on it like a pop-top.

She was wearing satiny-gray platforms with high heels and he carefully took those off her feet. He pulled the tight jeans down and then wriggled them off too. Ms Green's toenails were painted bright blue.

The Mastermind unclasped the lacy push-up bra and kneaded her smallish breasts. He rubbed them together with his palms. Then he pinched the tiny, perfect nipples hard. He'd wanted to do that, from the first time he saw her. He'd wanted to hurt her a little, or maybe a lot.

He looked out the farmhouse window, then around at the dead bodies again. "I'm not grossing any of you out, am I?" he asked.

He dragged Ms Green by her bare feet to the faded rug at the center of the room. Then he took off his own trousers. He was getting hard. He never got this way anymore. Maybe the FBI was right: He might be a pattern killer, after all. Maybe he was just beginning to understand who he really was.

"I'm a ghoul," the Mastermind said, then he pulled aside her panties and thrust himself inside the dead woman's vagina. "I'm crazy, Ms Green, and that's the biggest joke of all. I'm the one who's crazy. If the police only knew. What a great clue."